


On hallowed earth

by withered



Series: In another life [11]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Deathless characters, Immortal Bucky Barnes, Immortal Tony Stark, M/M, Symbolic ceremony, War personified, Wedding, death personified, heavy on metaphors, proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-19 04:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19967854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withered/pseuds/withered
Summary: Because where War is, where Tony goes, Death follows.





	On hallowed earth

He knows destruction well, has dabbled and simplified and perfected it as an art form. Not everyone takes the time. A job is a job, and it's easier to go through the motions than to really put in the work.

Tony had never been satisfied with doing anything halfway.

Famine and Pestilence join him, quiet and vicious, and take their queues from the wave of his hand.

For them, the art of the apocalypse is not theirs, theirs is the intended accident.

Humanity has evolved, supposedly, to outmatch them, outmaneuver them. Advances in science could recover them from disease, and while nature could fall however temporarily from famine, humankind would not.

At least in theory.

But then, War is summoned by human greed, subtle and overt at once.

Ignorance, only a temporary illusion as the masses begin to titter - quietly at first before the sound of them moves like a rising wave: In the whisper of unfairness, of injustice, of pain inflicted and forcibly forgotten; the drop of blood that spills from bitten tongues; the heart that pounds - angry and hurt and demanding to be heard with every dub-dub-dub against their chests. It happens over and over, and like dominos, they fall, one after the other, until the whispers are a shout, the drop of blood is a river, and the hearts stop beating, one by one.

War is angry, violent, and honest, and in a world so easily construed in artifice, made dull and muzzy by the layers of double entendres and an incessant begging to appear kinder than to actually be kind; War is raw and potent, and real.

There's no dressing up what happens - there's no sweet lies to be told among the ashes of civilization, no one else to blame for the result of society's mathematical equations, no accountability to be dodged when the evidence is looking up at you with deadened eyes and cracked lips, whispering, "It was you, it was you, it was you".

War is selfish, messy, full of blame and casualties and regrets. Just like Tony.

He thinks that's why he's so good at it, why he feels like he deserves this fate: Tony had been an agent of War when living, had become War itself in his dying.

And it's a punishment of the highest magnitude because Tony's never wanted to make war, only wanted to see it end.

In a way, he gets his wish.

Because where War is, where Tony goes, Death follows.

However, Death, this time, is someone new.

At the end of an aisle in all but a word, fashioned only from the ghosts of the bodies that litter the barren earth, standing like witnesses, Death arrives on a pale horse.

His hood trails behind him like a train of ink and shadow. His raven hair is tied back; a grey wolf pelt draped over one shoulder, stained with a spot of blood the shape of a star; the fingers of the arm beneath it glint silver, glint gold, glint metal.

While his posture is rigid, practiced, strong; there's a heaviness to his shoulders, a weight he carries; not with the ease of his predecessor, but the knowledge that it is what the dead deserve.

When he approaches, close enough that he has to alight from his horse to stand upon the same altar as War, Tony finds that his eyes are blue like a cloudless sky, like a whole field of cornflowers.

Tony swallows.

He learns that Death's name is Bucky now, Bucky who is different, who accepts Tony's fallen - the beloved War had seen fit to show the other side of the curtain, to carry his banner, to demand the truth and all the hurt and healing and enlightenment that accompanied it - and delivers his chosen from it with the same quiet sadness.

There is no honorable death, death is death, no cause nor truth is worth the life it takes.

But it is done anyway, Tony knows, that is the price of War, that is the sacrifice that must be made with every birth of a new awakening. He doesn't have to like it. He never has.

Bucky's reverent regret echoes his, and despite himself, Tony is glad.

This time, with this Death, Tony can mourn them too.

"Take care of them," Tony says, skin stained with tears, soot and blood.

His gaze traces the ethereal glow of their souls regretfully. _They deserved better than Tony. They deserved better than War._ "They've suffered enough, give them peace, please, give them something better than I have."

And Bucky nods, accepting his burden with both hands, cupping them safety, holding them close.

Bucky wonders, belatedly, that when Bucky himself had passed as a mortal - on a battlefield just like this - if Tony had carried him just as preciously if Tony had ached for his soul and the life he lost the way Tony aches for theirs.

Bucky shouldn't be surprised that War is kindness and cruelty at once.

They're not so different, the two of them.

"Not everyone will remember their names," Tony tells him, "not everyone will remember what they did or what they lost to give to those that will come after them. No one but me."

_Yes, not so different at all._

"Us," Bucky corrects. "Us."

He feels the souls in his palms warm, dissolve, and reform, butterflies bursting free and scattering in the wind which Tony watches with an awe that makes Bucky's cheeks warm, his heart pound.

Tony's never seen his efforts rewarded.

War is the name given to the reaction, the chain of events that is both the end and start of an era. He never sees the new worlds he makes, the souls he sets free from this mortal coil.

_It isn't fair. It won't ever be fair. This world will always be cruel to them. But you and I, we can give them peace. You will take away their pretenses, set their minds free, open their mouths and breathe courage into them. And_ _I will lay their bones, give their spirits rest, let their souls renew._

_They deserve better than what we can give them. But we will give them what we can. Together._

"If that is what you want."

He offers his hand, and Tony stares, hearing every word and promise beneath it: a partnership, a union, and says with breathless relief, "I do."

**Author's Note:**

> SURPRISE. I have no idea how this happened, but winteriron week prompt "wedding" was written and I'm honestly shocked how this turned out.
> 
> Also, this fic was written on my phone so apologies for any formatting hiccups.


End file.
